Add, run, and update inline tests
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Similar to task checklists, you can quickly define inline tests, or a set of manual tests, for a backlog item from your Kanban board. Not only can you add tests, you can run them and update their status. If you're new to working with the Kanban board, see Kanban basics.
In this article, you'll learn:
- How to add inline tests to a backlog item from your Kanban board
- How to run tests and update the status of tests
- How to expand or collapse inline tests
- How to reorder or reparent inline tests
Tests you create from the Kanban board are automatically linked to the user story or backlog item.
Prerequisites
Boards are automatically created when you create a project or add a team. Each team has access to their own product and portfolio boards as described in About teams and Agile tools.
- You must connect to a project. If you don't have a project yet, create one.
- You must be added to a project as a member of the Contributors or Project Administrators security group. To get added, Add users to a project or team.
- To add work items and exercise all board features, you must be granted Basic access or higher. For details, see About access levels.
- To view or modify work items, you must have your View work items in this node and Edit work items in this node permissions set to Allow. By default, the Contributors group has this permission set. To learn more, see Set permissions and access for work tracking.
- Users with Stakeholder access for a private project can add work items and update status through drag-and-drop, but cannot update fields displayed on cards. They can add tasks and change task status.
- Users with Stakeholder access for a public project have full access to board features just like users with Basic access. For details, see About access levels.
- You must connect to a project. If you don't have a project yet, create one.
- You must be added to a project as a member of the Contributors or Project Administrators security group. To get added, Add users to a project or team.
- To add work items and exercise all board features, you must be granted Basic access or higher. For details, see About access levels.
- To view or modify work items, you must have your View work items in this node and Edit work items in this node permissions set to Allow. By default, the Contributors group has this permission set. To learn more, see Set permissions and access for work tracking.
- Users with Stakeholder access can't exercise these board features: add work items, drag-and-drop work items to update status, or update fields displayed on cards. They can add tasks and change task status.
Open your Kanban board from the web portal
To view your Kanban board, open your project from a web browser and choose (1) Work, (2) Boards, and then (3) select the team's board from the selector.
To choose another team's board, open the selector and select a different team or choose the
Browse all team boards option. Or, you can enter a keyword in the search box to filter the list of team backlogs for the project.
Tip
Choose the
star icon to favorite a team board. Favorited artifacts (
favorited icon) appear at the top of the team selector list.
To view your Kanban board, open your (1) project from a web browser and choose (2) Work, (3) Backlogs, (4) Stories, and then (5) Board.
If you don't see Work, your screen size may be reduced. Click the three dots (
, then choose Work, Backlogs, and then Board.
To choose another team, open the project/team selector and select a different team or choose the Browse option.
Your Kanban board displays.
Add tests
To start adding tests, open the menu for the work item.
Adding inline tests is the same as adding test cases to a test suite. A default test plan and test suite are automatically created under which the manual test cases are grouped.
For example, a test suite is created for each user story, and all inline tests are added to that suite. Below, user story 152 is highlighted which has three manual tests defined with IDs of 153, 155, and 161.
To learn more about test plans and test suites, see Plan your tests.
If you have a number of tests to add, simply keep typing each title and click Enter.
To add details to the test case, open it. You can click the title, double-click the inline item, or open the context menu and choose Open.
See Create manual tests to learn more about defining tests.
Prior to running the test, you must add details.
Run test
Run the test by selecting 
Run test from the 
actions menu for the inline test.
Microsoft Test Runner starts in a new browser instance. For details on running a test, see Run manual tests.
Update the status of a test
You can update the status of the test from the
actions menu .
Updating the status of tests enable you to track test results.
Why doesn't the Kanban board show the status for test suites and plans already created in Test?
Expand or collapse inline tests
Upon first opening the Kanban board, you'll see an unexpanded view of checklists.
Simply click the inline test summary to expand a collapsed set of tests. Click the same summary to collapse an expanded list.
Copy or reparent a test
To reparent a test, drag and drop the test onto a different user story.
This action automatically changes the linked relationship of the test to point to the new user story.
To create a copy of a test to add to a different user story, select the test, press the CTRL key and then drag and drop the test onto the card of the user story.
Related articles
Use inline tests for lightweight traceability and to manage manual tests for user stories or other backlog items that they support. To learn more about test case management, see Create manual tests.
If you find that you don't use this feature, you can disable it from the common configurations dialog.
Additional ways you can quickly add linked items and objects to user stories from the Kanban board:
To initiate web-based exploratory testing for a user story, you need to install the Test & Feedback Marketplace extension. For details, see Install the Test & Feedback extension.
Test status in the Kanban board
Test integration with the Kanban board makes it easy for teams to get started with manual testing and then take advantage of the full testing capabilities in Test Manager later, when required. When test cases are created from the Kanban board and updated afterwards in Test Manager, or vice-versa, when users create requirement-based suites with Test Manager and update them in Test Manager, the Kanban board shows the correct status. However, the Test status in Kanban board does not work if the requirement-based suite has more than one configuration assigned to it. In such scenario, the Kanban board only shows the test outcome for the default configuration. Hence, it is recommended to use Test Manager to manage/track the testing progress across multiple configurations.